Shayan Rahmanian Koushkaki
Research Training Group 2806/1 - Literature and the public sphere in differentiated contemporary cultures
Address
Universitätsstraße 40 91054 Erlangen
Contact
Research Interests
- Sociology of Literature (particularly Literary Value and Literary Practice)
- Paratext and Authorship
- Critical University Studies
- Decolonial Feminisms
- Black Studies and Black Ontology
- Literature and Remembrance
- Poetry as Resistance
Projects
Dissertation: “Institutional Poetics: Fiction and Poetry Creative Writing Programs as Sites of Power”
Vita
- since October 2025: research associate and doctoral candidate in the research training group “Literature and the Public Sphere in Differentiated Contemporary Cultures” (RTG 2806) funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG)
- September 2025: M.A. New German Literary (Leibniz University Hannover)
- March 2025: M.A. North American Studies (Leibniz University Hannover)
- September 2020: B.A. Interdisciplinary Bachelor in English and German Studies (Leibniz University Hannover)
Presentations
- “‘The Only Possible Relationship to the University Today is a Criminal One.’ A Reflection on Repressions of Student Activism.” Presentation and Panel Discussion ‘North American Studies in Crisis,’ Leibniz University Hannover, 25. June 2025.
- “Whiteness as a Structure of Neglect in Academia.” Online-Symposium ‘Care and Neglect in (German) American Studies’ by the Diversity Roundtable of the German Association for American Studies (GAAS/DGfA), Zoom, 07. February 2025.
- “‘Dragon Fruit and Peaches in the Wine.’ Black Noise and the Effability of Afro-Optimism through Music.” Seminar ‘Black Feminist Thought,’ Leibniz University Hannover, 12. June 2024.
Publications
- Rahmanian Koushkaki, Shayan. “‘We Gon’ Be Alright’: Critical Fabulation and the Amplification of Black Noise in Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly.” Amerikastudien / American Studies, vol. 71, no. 1, 2026, pp. 85–102, https://doi.org/10.33675/amst/2026/1/8.
- Rahmanian Koushkaki, Shayan, and Theresa Sambruno Spannhoff. “Kanon Und Kanonisierung im Vereinigten Königreich und den Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika.” Projekt: Kanon, edited by Nils Gelker and Manuel Zink, Wehrhahn, 2021, pp. 97–116.
Teaching
- Seminar “Poetry Is Not a Luxury” — Poems of Resistance, Survival, and Suffering (Leibniz University Hannover, winter 2025)
Memberships and Networks
- Member of the German Association for American Studies (GAAS/DGfA)
- Member of the Poetry Network of the European Association for American Studies (EAAS)
- Organizational member of the Decolonial Feminisms Reading Group (DFRG)